‘MY HUSBAND HAD TO CHOOSE WHO TO SAVE – ME OR THE BABY’
APREGNANT woman hospitalised with coronavirus had her baby delivered by C-section while she was unconscious after doctors were unsure whether she would survive.
Christina Jones, 39, was diagnosed with Covid-19 on February 18 and, following eight days of isolation, was taken to Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil after struggling with breathing.
Christina was 30 weeks pregnant when she was taken to hospital. After being put on oxygen in the coronavirus ward for four days, her condition grew worse and she was ventilated on March 1.
The hospital called her husband Nick the next day to say that doctors wanted to deliver the baby by emergency Caesarean section.
“They said [to Nick]: ‘We need to get this baby out and we need you to come and sign the paperwork,” said Christina, from Nelson, Caerphilly.
“They needed to put me on my tummy to inflate my lungs – that’s why they had to get the baby out – and they couldn’t give me the drugs that I needed.”
Following the phone call Nick, 45, was met by a surgeon and grief counsellor at the hospital. “Clearly it’s not a good thing when you’re met by a grief counsellor and taken to one side. I thought she’d gone at that point,” Nick said.
Nick said the surgeon told him the only option they had to save Christina’s life was to deliver the baby.
“He said: ‘Your wife is as ill as you can possibly get’,” he continued.
“Before she went into surgery they said if we can save one I had to choose. I said it would be my wife.”
Under the exceptional circumstances Nick said a grief counsellor told him he could go into the room, wearing a hazmat suit with an oxygen generator, to speak to Christina, who was in a coma.
“At that point, how ill Chris looked, I really thought it was going to take a miracle,” he said.
The couple’s daughter was delivered via a C-section on March 2. She was born weighing just 3lb 6oz.
“All she had was a heartbeat. She was lifeless,” Christina – who is also stepmother to Nicky, 15, and mum to daughter Honey, 10 – said.
“They said surgery would be quick but they had me in there for three hours because they couldn’t stop me bleeding.”
Nick said their daughter was not initially breathing when she was born and was then taken away to a separate room as she had been born to a Covid-positive mother.
He was allowed to put on personal protective equipment (PPE) to see his newborn daughter through the glass of the incubator where she had been put on a ventilator.
The baby was transferred to the Grange Hospital in Cwmbran for five days.
All the while new dad Nick was unable to see his daughter as she required two negative Covid tests.
The hospital shared daily pictures of her through vCreate, a secure video messaging service used by the NHS to connect families, patients, and clinical teams.
“It was really nice. Because I couldn’t see her I felt a bit more in touch with her at that point,” Nick continued.
The family had not yet given their daughter a name.
“When she was in the Grange my husband was ringing to see how she was and they were calling her Baby 41, whatever,” Christina said.
Businessman Nick and the family decided to name the baby Angel Grace Hope Jones, with “Angel” being a temporary name at first.
“My little girl, who’s only 10 years old, sent me a text message when I was sleeping saying: ‘Mummy, you’re not going to see this when you’re